


how long before you trust me

by qwanderer



Series: something like home [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bruce-centric, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, but they all end up in a good place, post-age of ultron, slight Natasha-bashing at the beginning, spoilers for Age of Ultron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 05:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3884800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce doesn't know if he can ever feel like part of the team again. But he's discovering that that doesn't mean he has to be alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a place to start

Mexico felt different, this time. 

Familiar, but different. It smelled the same, for the most part, the same smells of food, people and animals, a little more smoke. 

The protests were new. 

The whole country was... angrier. More on edge. Tired of being jerked around and being lied to. But at the same time, there was a new sense of energy, of... solidarity. Of pulling together for a common goal. 

Bruce could relate. 

Since the Hulk had dropped him on the warm shores of who-knows-where, he'd traveled wherever and however he could manage, helping the people he came across and getting by with what they gave him in return. The habits came back easily enough, sleeping rough, eating little. Blending in. Watching his back. He'd been afraid it wouldn't come back, that he'd stayed in the lap of luxury too long. But that all seemed like some kind of bizarre dream now - it felt like he'd always been on the run, that he'd only dreamed that there was somewhere he could settle in. Somewhere he could belong. 

And maybe it all had been just a daydream. 

The witch, Wanda, had put all the Avengers to sleep, had made them dream. Had showed them nightmares, their worst fears. But not him. She hadn't shown him dreams. 

She hadn't needed to. 

All she'd had to do was wake him up. 

It had all been real, the things she showed him. All the destruction. The pain. A rude awakening. 

And then? 

"I had a dream," Natasha told him. "That I was an Avenger." 

She'd told him that she felt like a monster, a killing machine, tried to tell him that she understood what it felt like to be so horrified by your own potential that you weren't sure whether it was worthwhile to try to use them. She'd cracked open his heart with stories of how that potential had been used, twisted. She'd told him that she would run with him, if he ran. 

Exactly what he wanted to hear, and didn't she have a talent for that? He'd thought she meant it. 

And then she tricked him, pushed him, used him to complete the mission. 

That still sat in his stomach like a brick. No matter how far away he got from New York, from her, it weighed him down. 

It didn't help that there was now a city on every populated continent where the Hulk had made his presence felt. Rio de Janeiro. New York. Johannesburg. Sokovia. It felt like there was nowhere that was far enough away that he could forget what he was capable of. 

So he had nowhere, really, to go. 

His travels had been aimless, or at least consciously so, but he was beginning to get a feeling that something inside him was aiming for _something._ The Hulk was steering him somewhere. 

Not New York. His feelings about the city were a tangled mess (more even than average for him), but it was a cringing feeling, a sadness, an aversion more than a pull. But he was making his way up through Sonora, back up to the border on roughly the same path that he'd taken down, the first time, before Rio. 

He stopped to get food at a place he remembered, the food all spice and richness, and he thought back to last time, what had changed and what hadn't. 

Before, he'd run to protect Betty from himself. This time... he'd run to protect himself from Natasha. He wasn't sure which hurt worse. 

Now, when he thought of what he was avoiding, the places he wasn't - when he thought about being _home_ \- he didn't think of Betty. 

But he didn't think of _Natasha,_ either. 

And out of the others.... 

Well, Bruce was starting to have a pretty good idea of where Hulk was steering him. 

* * *

**Malibu, CA**

It felt odd, walking up to this house he'd never laid eyes on, this mansion on the coast, clothes kind of bedraggled and unsure of his reception. He fervently hoped he'd gotten the right place. 

The gate opened under his hand, and he walked up to the sprawling structure, searching out something that resembled a front door. 

The panel beside the door lit up as he approached. "Good morning, Doctor Banner," said a soft female voice, accent not quite American, but far from Jarvis's English drawl. Irish, maybe? 

"Hey," he said hesitantly. "Uh. Is Tony in?" 

The door swung open as the voice from the panel answered. "Mr. Stark isn't here at the moment, but he's left instructions that you are to be given full access to the house and workshops. Please, come in." 

"Thanks. You're, uh, AI?" he asked as he walked in and found empty, echoing space. 

"Yes, Doctor," she answered pleasantly. "My name is FRIDAY. If there's anything you need, please ask." 

She directed him to a shower and a meal, everything smooth and easy and pleasant. He was back in the lap of luxury, and like being thrown head first into a swimming pool, it was a shock to the system, enveloping and overwhelming. He was just tidying up the kitchen when Tony returned. 

The door closed with a soft thunk. "Hey, Fry, where's this company you promised me?" came the familiar voice from around the corner. 

"In the kitchen, Boss," FRIDAY replied. Bruce's eyes strayed towards the corner that separated them, more eager than he'd expected to be to see the eccentric billionaire again. 

Tony rounded the corner, and when his eyes flicked to Bruce, they widened, and he darted back behind the wall. There was a moment of stillness. 

"I know you're not afraid of me, Tony," Bruce called with a breathless laugh, a hint of nervousness tied up in it at the prospect that he might be wrong. 

"Well, no, not in the classical sense," came the reply before Tony poked his head back around the corner, bright eyes steadily on the scientist now. "Kinda afraid I'll do something to chase you off again, though." 

Bruce sighed, turning away to rinse his dishes. "It wasn't you," he reassured. "As much as you're... well... _you,_ you weren't the reason I ran." 

Tony made a noise, a little sympathetic, a little disbelieving. "Right," he said. "I've been told that anyone who can tolerate me for as long as you did can tolerate just about anything." 

Bruce shook his head, looking back to Tony. "I can tolerate a lot of things," he said, "some of which I'd never wish on anyone. I've got a pretty long list of those now, actually. But if you were on that list, I wouldn't be here." 

He tried to make it sound like the light banter they usually used to gloss over everything terrible in their lives if it came up while they were working. But it came out heavy, almost pleading. 

Tony came the rest of the way into the kitchen now, looking with concern at his friend. "Huh," he said. "My turn to play therapist?" 

Bruce laughed a little bitterly. "You think you're up to that job?" 

"Well, I've got the time. I'm retired." He strode back into the main room, beckoning like Bruce following him was a foregone conclusion. 

Thinking about how much he'd done at Tony's suggestion the last time they'd been in the same building, Bruce thought that was probably justified. 

"So what's on your mind, Big Guy?" said Tony as Bruce took a seat near his. 

Bruce looked at him for a minute before formulating an approach to the subjects swirling in his head. He settled on, "How long have you known Natasha?" 

Tony snorted. "Well, that depends. You wanna include the time a Miss Natalie Rushman infiltrated my company to flirt, get close to me and learn all my secrets, then stab me in the neck with a hypodermic? Because if you do, then... never. I don't know this woman, Your Honor, never seen her before in my life." 

The noise Bruce made was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "So she's just... like that, huh? Draw you in, and then stab you in the back to complete her mission?" He winced. "Should've seen it. I think I can probably count on one hand the people who really want to be near me for reasons other than to use the Hulk." 

Tony drew in breath through his teeth in a hiss. "Wow. Yeah. Knew _something_ was going on with you two, but...." He rubbed at his eyes tiredly with his fingers and thumb. "Steve... he trusts her, they have this whole 'war buddies' thing going on, and I trust his judgement." He talked over Bruce's scoffing noise. "With things that aren't science, I trust his judgement. But she really just wanted to put the whammy on you mission-wise? Not...." 

Bruce interrupted before that sentence could get worse. "I don't think it was just that. I'm not even sure if she knows she's doing it. I know what it is to have different, conflicting impulses in your mind, okay, I get that. But she looked me in the eye and she promised me we'd run away together, whenever and wherever I needed to, and when I decided to take her up on it, she pushed me off Ultron's floating city." 

Tony's face crinkled in a sympathetic grimace, then a considering frown. "Hate to say it but I'm kinda grateful, Bruce." He reached over and squeezed the other man's shoulder. "Couldn't have done it without your greener half." 

"You would have found a way." Bruce let his breath out in a huff. "You always do." 

"Mostly that's because I've got the best people around me." Tony's words were quiet and sincere, and they hung for a moment in the air before the engineer's patience for emotions was apparently exhausted, and he stood, the science-gleam sparking in his eyes. "Come on, come take a look at how FRIDAY's matrix is developing, tell me what you think. I patched in a few of the protocol chains from JARVIS, but I'm thinking from here I want to let her develop on her own. She's pretty quick on the uptake, aren't you, Fry?" 

His chatter and FRIDAY's continued, slowly beginning to fill the space that sat so heavy and hollow in Bruce's core.


	2. a place to heal

Bruce told FRIDAY it was okay to let the Avengers know where he was. Natasha didn't contact him, and he figured that she'd taken the hint that he wasn't quite ready to talk to her yet. But a couple of days later, he got a call from Clint. 

"Hey, Doc," greeted the archer. "Back safe from your latest adventure?" 

"More or less," Bruce answered. "What can I do for you, Clint?" 

"Eh," said Clint, "just wanted to see how you were? Not gonna lie, Nat wanted me to check in. Maybe see where things stand." 

"They're... not good," Bruce said. 

"Look, I don't know what went on between the two of you, but I know Nat's beating herself up about it. Talk to her?" 

"I can't promise that," Bruce told him. "There's... a lot I need to figure out first." 

"Okay... yeah." Clint hesitated for a moment. "You know she didn't mean...." 

"I don't _know_ what I know, Clint. I thought maybe I could trust her to be straight with me. That didn't work out so well for me." 

Clint made a sort of pained, half-protesting noise. He took a breath to speak, then let it out again. Then he made another try. "Listen, she's pretty busy with training at Avengers HQ right now and won't be around here, so if you ever wanna spend some time on the farm... maybe talk with Laura? She's... perceptive. She called you two before I ever knew. Sees something there." 

"Sees things Hawkeye can't?" Bruce huffed a laugh. "I get why you like her." 

"Yeah, she's the best," Clint agreed, a smile in his voice. "It'd be great to have you. Always something else to do around the farm, if you wanna earn your keep." 

That sounded more appealing than Bruce would have thought. He really did love working with Tony, but the sudden transition from living rough to living like a Stark had left him still scrambling to figure out which way was up. 

He took a breath, and answered, "I'll think about it." 

* * *

They were so welcoming, and it felt entirely at odds with how he felt about himself right now, but it was what it was. He was never exactly in harmony with himself, anyway. He could tell they were curious about what had happened with Natasha, and just wanted to help. 

They didn't push him. 

The work on the farm was hard and rough enough that he felt less like he was drowning in luxury, in things he knew he couldn't have if he had to run again. But it was stable, safe, with people he knew and saw every day. With family, and love, and children. 

The first time Cooper asked for help with his science homework, leaned up against him where he sat at the table with his tea, Bruce was startled, a little frozen, but he stammered his way through what seemed to be a satisfactory explanation of the scientific method and why it was the way it was. 

Laura watched him from where she stood at the kitchen counter with a small smile, and then she sat down with her own cup of tea. 

"Don't think too hard about it," Laura told him. "I can see you worrying. Clint used to be like that. He's always been a fighter - he's had to be - so when we had Cooper, he was so scared to move wrong. And - well, let's say, I trust every one of the Avengers around my kids, more than they trust themselves. All right?" She patted his shoulder. "I know life is dangerous, especially for all of you. But this is our home, and when we bring someone here, we want them to be able to forget all that for a little while. It'll be fine." 

Well, Bruce couldn't just not worry about the Hulk. But he could justify conforming to the customs of the place where he'd found himself. He'd gotten good at that. 

Before he knew it, he had kids crawling into his lap on a regular basis. 

Lila loved art, but also had a brain for math, so Bruce taught her some basic compass-and-straightedge constructions, the perfect six-petaled flowers of interlocking circles catching her attention first, but the polygons she caught onto quickly as well. Soon the precise and orderly patterns filled in with bright colored pencil were all over the house alongside her freehand drawings, and something about that made his whole being settle a little easier into the place. 

And Nathaniel, well, he just seemed to like the sound of Bruce's voice, and there were whole stretches of hours when Nate's little head rested against Bruce's chest while he video-chatted with Tony, consulting on whatever project he was working on now. 

There was a reservoir inside of him that had never quite been full, he was realizing now, not even when he'd been with Betty. Because no one person could fill it up like this, fill it up to overflowing, with all the contact and sharing and laughter that he could possibly want. 

Before he knew it, it had been a month and a half, and he was sitting out on the porch with Clint and Laura drinking coffee, after the two older kids had been picked up for school. Nathaniel was perched in Clint's lap, thoroughly coating his father's hand in slobber. 

It struck Bruce, then, that this had become normal, that he really didn't want to leave. He always had a part of him that was itching to leave wherever he was. Right now, that part was very, very small, almost imperceptible. 

He chuckled quietly. "This is starting to feel... like home." 

Clint and Laura looked at each other, and their eyes spoke volumes. 

"It is your home," Laura told him at last. "For as long as you want." 

He sighed. "Well, then, I'm going to have to deal with the 'Aunt Nat' thing, eventually," he said. 

It didn't sound nearly as daunting as it had a month ago, at least. 

He started in on the problem while he and Laura were making dinner that night, and Clint was out playing with the kids. He let the rhythmic motions of chopping vegetables ground him, and he asked, "How long have you known Natasha?" 

"Years," Laura answered immediately. "Since right before Lila was born. Clint came home to be here for the birth and help take care of things, but he didn't want to leave her by herself at SHIELD just then. Things were still... difficult. A lot of people there still thought of her as the enemy, even though she'd been doing nothing but follow SHIELD orders for more than a year. Clint thought she'd do better if she spent some time somewhere a little more friendly." 

Bruce gave a quiet laugh. "I can imagine that it helped. There's something about this place." 

"It wasn't as easy for her as it has been for you, getting comfortable here," Laura replied. "You might be a little conflicted, but you're yourself, no matter which self you end up listening to. You've got things you want, things you love, that define you. Nat's always been a little shaky on that count." 

"Yeah," Bruce said, "I got that impression. But there's a big difference between knowing that, and knowing how to handle it." 

"In some ways, it's a lot like raising a kid," Laura told him after a thoughtful pause. "There are some things you can tell her, but ultimately there are a lot of choices that she has to stumble through for herself if she's going to figure out how she wants to deal with them. She has a hard time figuring out, sometimes, what is the Red Room and what is her. At first she just solved the problem by devoting herself to SHIELD, following their orders. It didn't really help her become her own person." She shook her head, a fond but sad smile on her face. "The first time she visited here, she ran everything by Clint before she did it, like she needed mission parameters for dealing with family dinners. She needed a little nudge, to try and maybe fail to be herself with people. She's been getting better at figuring out who she wants to be with us, who Aunt Nat is. But I've never seen her try to romance anybody." She looked at him with wide, earnest eyes. "It couldn't go exactly right the first time." 

"Oh jeez. We're a pair, the both of us." He laughed ruefully. 

"You're both awkward, yes," she agreed with a broad, affectionate smile. "Maybe a little lost. But you're also both trying very, very hard to figure yourselves out." 

"Thanks," he said, hunching his shoulders a bit self-consciously. "I'm hoping it'll get easier for us both." 

* * *

Clint had let Natasha know, of course, that Bruce was spending a little time on the farm, and that he was hesitant about seeing her again. "But if you need me," Clint had made sure to stress, "I'm there, all right? Laura can do without me for a little bit, if it's for you." 

She was always a little shocked at how open they both were with her, how giving they could be. It was the opposite of everything she'd been taught about people. 

She got her regular videos, of course, of how Nathaniel Pietro was growing, of the whole family saying hello. She knew, in the abstract, that Bruce was there, that he was likely to show up. 

Still, the image of Bruce holding baby Nate, the tiny fist bopping his nose and reaching for his hair - the look on Bruce's face! Like he wasn't exactly sure when he'd gotten to heaven, but he desperately wanted to stay - it hit her unexpectedly, painfully, like a blow to the gut. 

And in the back of her mind, the question stirred. Should she have run? Should she have chosen to walk away and leave the fight to others? 

The wobbly feeling in her gut, the whispers of hesitation she felt, she quashed quickly and automatically. Of course she made the right choice. They'd needed to save the world. 

She'd thought Bruce would understand that. Or, she'd hoped. She'd hoped real hard. 

Maybe that had been her mistake. Hoping. 

But the fact was that regimes changed, power shifted, empires fell, and none of it touched her, not like this did. None of it mattered this much. 

That was a disconnect. She'd messed up somewhere. But was it in feeling this way, or in not acting on it? She didn't know enough to say. 

She smiled a tight little smile as she watched all the Bartons wave hello, or goodbye, considering that was the end of the video. She packed away her phone and everything that had come with it, and went back to work. 


	3. a place to live

She sat delicately, as if feeling that this was no longer her home ground, neither him nor this farm, that she had to be careful of it all over again. Part of him was sorry. Part felt that she had damn well _better_ be careful. 

"Natasha," he greeted, nodding at her from his place in the next chair on the porch. 

"Will you tell me why you ran?" She came right to it, and that was such a relief. He didn't want to have to navigate her confusing, confounding sweetness right now. 

He stared out at the landscape, cool and fresh and very green. 

"God, I wanted to run, so badly, ever since Johannesburg. There were things I couldn't see any more of. But I didn't want to just... leave the team." He took a breath. "The thing about the Hulk is that at his best, he's everything I want to do but don't have the conviction to do, set free." 

Her mouth twisted a bit. "And he took the opportunity? That was all? Then why come back?" She didn't ask why it hadn't been to her. 

"Natasha...." He was nearly whispering now. "You pushed me off of a cliff. You tricked me into changing. I'd been used enough already." 

"We needed the Hulk." 

"You know, it would have hurt less if you'd just _told_ me you needed the Hulk more than you wanted me?" He pressed his lips together, biting them. "I'm not sure if I would have left, if you'd told me then. I think I would have stayed. I'm dangerous wherever I am, I know that, God, do I know that. It's not about that. But you told me you'd run with me. You said anywhere. Was that all a trick? And why? If you wanted me to stay, couldn't you have just told me that?" 

"You wouldn't have... we didn't have time." 

"Not then. Before. Because there's always going to be another battle, another thing the world needs defending from. But it doesn't have to be us. I thought you got that. If you were going to make that choice, why tell me that you'd run away with me? Why say all those things to convince me that it was okay to want that for myself? Before you said those things, running was just to protect other people from me, from my potential. Because I've seen to much destruction. You made me _want_ to run. Why would you _do_ that? And then...." He threw up his hands in exasperation. 

She watched him closely as she spoke, as if trying to read him. "I wanted to make you happy. I wanted to do whatever it took to let you know that you're not alone, that I understood how you felt. Because I did, Bruce, I do. When I watch how you act, how you feel about yourself..." She made a vague gesture, hand clenching, just barely inching in towards her chest, towards her heart. Her face was tied up in pain. 

"Do you?" was all he replied to that. "Do you really." 

"I think I do." Her tone was solid, but her eyes were searching, unsure. 

Bruce's jaw clenched. "There are a lot of things that make me angry, but the one thing I hate is being made to fight, pushed so far I leave a trail of destruction. Being a pawn of the people in power, pawn of the military, you know how that feels. I know you do. So I don't understand how that's something you could put me through. _Again._ " 

She watched him with a fascination, a focus, a wary need to know. "I _need_ that, Bruce, that's the messed up thing. Sometimes I need an authority to give me orders, to tell me when to fight, when to kill. I wish I didn't. I wish I could run away." Her voice, her movements, were jerky, unsure. "But some days I'm nothing more than a tool and I need someone to handle me. I thought - maybe. The way you let Tony tell you what to do. That you needed that too." 

Bruce sat back with a long, gusty sigh. "No, you're not seeing him properly. Tony isn't... he doesn't give orders, he uses words. He convinces. It's... I can see his mind and heart at work, I can see when he believes a thing is right wholeheartedly, I can see why he thinks it. It's a wide open field, Natasha, it's a map with all the choices spread out on it, and I choose to follow him or I don't. Just because I usually follow, doesn't mean I don't need to have that choice." 

"Fuck." 

Natasha was staring out into the distance now, face still. She didn't speak. 

"Listen," said Bruce. "I have a lot better idea now why you acted that way, and you know why it hurt me. So maybe we can start over?" 

Her eyes flicked to him, just looking. She smiled, just the tiniest bit. "I'd like that," she said. 

They sat like that in silence for a long time, just enjoying the stillness, the peace, until Cooper and Lila came home from school, yelling in enthusiasm as they saw their Aunt Nat on the porch and throwing themselves at her. 

"Aunt Nat, come see my drawings! Uncle Bruce taught me to draw shapes!" Lila cried, taking her hand and trying to drag her bodily out of her chair. 

Natasha went, but made a show of resisting. "Oof, Lila, not so rough!" she complained. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" 

It seemed like they all tumbled in the door in a ball of laughter and excitement, to find Clint and Laura in the kitchen, sorting and washing vegetables that had just come in from the fields, and grinning up at the mass of people now in the room. 

The kids stole Nat off to their rooms, talking excitedly, and Bruce joined the others in the kitchen, asking how he could help. He ended up scrubbing potatoes for a while before Nathaniel got antsy and whined from his playpen, wanting to be picked up. Bruce went to get him, since his parents seemed to be in the midst of a complicated mess of vegetable processing, and went off to find Natasha and the kids. 

They were in the art corner, Lila proudly showing off a particularly stunning piece of an enormous flower with eighteen petals. Natasha exclaimed over it, asking Lila to show her how she'd done it, and Lila brought out her compass happily and began constructing another. Cooper came over to Bruce, grabbing his free hand before launching into a discussion of the different types of clouds, asking why there were so many different shapes to them. 

Natasha caught Bruce's eye over Lila's shoulder, and smiled just a bit wistfully, and Bruce felt at least comfortable enough with her to smile back. 

She found him again, later, after dinner, as he was washing the dishes, and settled in to help him dry. He waited, seeing what she would say. 

"You belong here," she said. "I didn't see it before, because you were always with Tony or worrying about the next mission. But you really do like it better out of the center of things, don't you? You really do belong out here." 

"Part of me does," Bruce agreed. "If it were that simple, I would have left the Avengers a long time ago." 

"I'm sorry," Natasha told him. "For not seeing this. For thinking that you were like me, and could never fit into the kind of life you wanted." 

Bruce shook his head. "We are a lot alike, and you belong here too, or at least part of you does. You love these kids. Clint, Laura, the farm. Maybe you don't appreciate the peace and quiet as much as I do, but... yeah, you fit here." 

Natasha put down her towel, watching him. Then she leaned over to pull him in for a kiss. 

Bruce almost dropped the dish he was holding as he pushed her away, backed up three steps, gasped out the words, "I'm sorry," and fled. 

* * *

At breakfast, the two sat in more or less silence, only responding when they were spoken to. After Clint and Laura had gotten the kids out the door, they were still sitting there, Natasha with hands folded in front of her, Bruce contemplating his tea. 

Clint came back in first, and when he saw them, he just made a "yeesh" noise, and turned to look back at his wife. Laura came in, sat back down at the table, and asked, "What happened between you two?" 

Neither of them answered, but Natasha spoke, looking at Bruce. "You'd let me know if I was barking up the wrong tree here, right?" 

Bruce shifted awkwardly in his seat. "I like my life here, it's more than I ever thought I could have. It's more than enough." 

She frowned. "But do you want me?" 

"I don't know, but I don't want to be seduced." 

Natasha pushed away from the table, abrupt but still graceful. She paced across the room, silhouetted against the windows. "I'm not sure what else there is, but I think I want it. I don't know how to do this, I've known how to seduce since I was ten, I have no - no context for this." 

Bruce stood too, looking at her sadly. "I'm sorry," he said. 

"Should we be here?" Clint broke in awkwardly. 

"Yes," said Laura without hesitation, and beckoned him over. "Look, we've been married for fourteen years. It seems to work for us. So if you need a resource? We're here." 

"I don't think you can _teach_ someone how to love," Natasha shot back at her. 

"Maybe, maybe not. But I don't think that's your problem. Maybe we can help teach you how to show it." 

Natasha blinked slowly, absorbing. "How?" 

Clint and Laura shared another of their long, meaningful looks. Then Clint gave a quick nod. Laura stood and walked towards Natasha. 

"This is how you kiss someone who you're not sure how or whether they want to be kissed. Can I kiss you?" she asked Natasha, holding out a hand. 

"Yes." Nat sounded as if she were taking part in a training exercise. 

When it came down to it, she really was. 

Laura kissed Natasha slowly, gently but firmly, briefly, and then backed off again, giving Natasha a smile. 

Bruce watched both the two women and Clint with equal curiosity. Clint seemed unperturbed, mainly, and then he caught Bruce looking at him. 

"The two of you are family and more, okay? We love you both, you're like parents to our kids. Nate's got Nat's name and probably knows your voice better'n mine. There's not a lot we wouldn't share with you at this point." 

Bruce nodded, not sure what to say to that. Before he could summon anything, Natasha was approaching him. 

"Can I kiss you?" she asked. 

Bruce hated to do this, but... "I, uh... I'd rather you didn't? Right now." 

Her face didn't fall, but her eyes tightened, just a little, thoughtful and frustrated. "I know you're attracted to me," she said. 

"Yeah, I am," he agreed, "and the last time you kissed me it distracted me so much that I was completely taken by surprise to be pushed off a cliff the next second." 

"Yeah," she said, grimacing. "Kind of soured the whole activity for you?" 

He shrugged, tilting his head from one side to the other in a 'more or less' kind of gesture. 

"But it's something you like?" 

"In general, yes? I haven't gotten the chance that often, not since the Hulk." 

Natasha moved her gaze to Clint, raising her eyebrows and slanting her head just slightly. 

"Huh, you think so?" was Clint's response. 

"I think it's worth a try." 

"What?" Bruce asked. "What are you...." 

"Hey, Bruce, can I kiss you?" Clint asked him, apparently serious despite the twinkle in his eye. 

Bruce just watched him for a moment, but Clint's gaze and small smile didn't waver. He looked at Natasha instead. 

"I want you to get what you want," she told him. 

"Okay," he said, turning back to Clint. "Okay." 

Clint's approach was slow and telegraphed, a precise copy of the movement Laura had shown Natasha, his sharp eyes and trained body making it possible. The hand on Bruce's shoulder was warm and familiar, and having Clint in his space as comfortable as when they were passing Nate back and forth. 

The lips brushing his, that was new, and the way they slowly and gently pressed into his. It felt safe, because it was Clint, but what made it just right was that it was a gift from Natasha. 

Clint's lips pressed against his one more time, and then he was leaning away, watching carefully. "Okay?" he asked. 

"Yeah," said Bruce, smiling, then he let his head fall to rest on Clint's shoulder, keeping his arms around the other man for another moment before letting go. "Thanks." 

Natasha was still watching thoughtfully. She approached Bruce again, staying at arm's length. "Can I hug you?" 

Bruce gave a breath of a laugh, smiling at her. "Yeah, you can. I'm sorry I've been so... difficult about all this." 

"No, don't be, Bruce," she said sadly, pulling him into her arms. He relaxed into that, pulling her in closer, and she lifted a hand to the back of his neck, stroking a thumb through his hair, murmuring near his ear, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you or push you away. I won't do it again." 

"It's okay," he told her in return, holding her tight. "It's okay now." 

* * *

There were many more lessons, after that, much more time spent working through all the barriers between them, now that they could see them all clearly. 

Natasha was back and forth from the Avengers facility and the farm regularly, and she went out on missions if she was there, and Clint went if they needed his aim for something in particular, but Bruce mostly stayed on the farm. Tony was the first one to convince him to come out for a mission, and it didn't end horribly, so after that he was a little bit easier to sway. 

Nathaniel learned to say "Mama" first, but his second word was "Boo" when he wanted Bruce. Bruce was apologetic, but Clint waved it off, and was happy to be a close third. Nate was a few more words in when Natasha became "Nana." 

Nobody could say they weren't family when Nate reached for them like that and said their names. 

One night they were all piled on the couch, all four of the grownups lined up with kids sprawled across them, Nate in his mom's arms, Cooper leaned up against Clint's side with his feet in Bruce's lap, and Lila in Natasha's lap but leaned over against the arm. They were watching Toy Story, and everything was just about perfect. 

Nat leaned over to kiss Bruce on the cheek, and she whispered in his ear, "Run away with me." 

Bruce reached out to curl a hand around the back of her neck, kiss the corner of her mouth, and whisper, "Come home with me." 

They leaned their foreheads against each other, and they knew they were far away from everything that threatened them, and they knew they were home.


End file.
